


The Ladies of the Lake Avalon.

by Michaelssw0rd



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-17 23:25:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16105964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michaelssw0rd/pseuds/Michaelssw0rd
Summary: On the shore, the young Sidhe weeps for a lost future. Deep inside the lake, the lady feels it echo inside her heart, and decides to help.





	The Ladies of the Lake Avalon.

**Author's Note:**

> Set in an AU where Merlin doesn't kill Sophia, and the Freya story line happened before the Sophia one.

The young Sidhe was weeping on the shore.

Freya could hear her cries, and her heart ached for her. She had just wanted to go home; Freya could relate to that. Once… that was all Freya had wanted, too.

Merlin—dear, kind hearted Merlin—had taken her as close to it as was possible. He had brought her _here_. And yet, he had taken the very same thing away from the Sidhe instead. Freya looked for any resentment inside of her for that, but she couldn’t find it. Not when the Sidhe had tried to take Merlin’s home away from him in the first place.

Because sometimes, home wasn’t a place. It was a person. For Merlin, that person was always going to be Arthur. That’s why Freya could’ve never allowed Merlin to run away with her. She couldn’t have allowed him to leave his home behind, no matter how lonely it made her.

Another wrecked sob reached her, another tear touching the surface of her lake, and suddenly she made the decision to help, to do what she could. Maybe she couldn’t take the Sidhe home, but she could help her make a new one, just like Merlin had helped her.

Being the lady of the lake was a lonely existence. Maybe, just maybe, it didn’t have to be that way anymore.

* * *

 

Sophia hated crying. _Hated_ it.

She always thought the people who shed tears were weak. Pathetic. Crying never solved anything. It was just an excuse to feel sorry for oneself, and stay in the miserable state longer. She hadn’t even cried when they had been thrown out of Avalon and confined inside these wretched mortal shells.

And yet all she could do at the moment was hold on to her knees and sob, and try not to fall apart into a million pieces, much like her father had done. She should’ve died with him. It would’ve been a mercy.

She had never known a loss quite like this. Not even when she lost her powers, her home, and her true form.

She had never known grief quite like this either.

Lost in her thoughts, Sophia didn’t notice the ripple of water, didn’t see a figure approaching her, until she felt its shadow on her face. In a moment of irrational hope, she looked up, convinced it was her father.

It wasn’t.

It was a girl—a girl more beautiful than anyone she had ever seen.

“Hello,” the girl spoke, and her voice felt like the soothing wave of water lapping against her skin. “I am Freya.”

A sob rose from her chest and broke against her lips, and she angrily looked away, wiping the tears on her cheek with the back of her hand. She didn’t want to be seen. Not when she was reduced to _this_.

The girl, Freya, didn’t seem to take the hint though, because she came closer.

“Are you lost?” she asked, in a voice of a person who already knew the answer.

Was she lost? She thought about it for a moment; but people were only lost when they had somewhere to go. She had nowhere to go, nowhere to belong.

Sophia’s lack of answers didn’t faze Freya. “What’s your name?”

That was a question she could answer, even if she couldn’t bring herself to meet her eyes yet. After all, Freya had already given Sophia her name. She could return the favor.

“Sophia.”

“Sophia,” Freya spoke her name like it was precious, and it made her curl into herself even more, hiding the traitorous tears that spilled from her eyes. “A beautiful name, for one so beautiful.”

Sophia shook her head slowly, unwilling to hear the words. She had prided herself on her power as a Sidhe once upon a time. And even when she had been reduced to her weakened mortal form, she had prided on her beauty, on her charm. In the end, that too had failed her. Now, the praise felt like a taunt.

She felt Freya caress her forehead, her fingers dragging down until they reached her chin, and then slowly tilted it up, making her meet Freya’s gaze.

She was even more beautiful up close, and Sophia found herself drowning in her eyes the way she had failed to drown the Prince in her own.

“Why do you cry, little Fae?”

She _knew_. How did she know?

Freya saw her wide eyes and smiled. “I would be quite amiss at my job if I didn’t know who was weeping at my shores.”

Sophia could feel it, the power emanating from the touch on her skin, from the woman in front of her.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Freya,” she said, but when Sophia gave her an unimpressed stare, she laughed lightly. “The lady of the lake.”

The lady of the lake. Fear choked her as she remembered how the keepers of the gate had denied her. But Freya didn’t seem angry. She seemed kind.

“What do you want from me?”

“You were weeping at my shores,” she said, like it was answer enough. “I came to see if I could help.”

Sophia felt fresh tears gather in her eyes, spilling from her eyes. “Nobody can help me. He already took everything I had.”

“Yes. But you tried to take everything he had.” The voice was almost a whisper, barely audible.

Sophia heard it anyway. “You know him.”

“Yes. He once did me a favor; it’s time I returned it.”

“What do you mean…” Sophia shook her head, confused and lost.

“It’s not important.” Freya gently caressed Sophia’s cheek, wiping away the tears. “What’s important is where we go from here.”

“I don’t—” Sophia swallowed, ashamed of how weak she was, how helpless. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

Freya took her hand away, and before Sophia can feel its loss, Freya used it to grip Sophia’s wrist, gently turning her palm. She stroked her fingers on top of it, an entreaty.

“Then… maybe you can come with me?”

“To Avalon?” Wretched hope built in her heart, even as she tried to crush it.

When Freya took her hand, Sophia let herself be pulled up. “No.” She shook her head. “I can’t take you home, Sophia. Only the Sidhe elders can open the gate.”

She seemed so sad, and yet so hopeful at the same time. For a moment, Sophia forgot about the pain in her heart, forgot about the loss she had just suffered, and just let herself feel the water under her feet, and the hand of the lady of the lake in her own. Slowly, she stepped closer.

“What do you have in mind?”

Freya looked up at her, her brown eyes a quicksand, sucking her in. “Here, at the edge of two worlds, belonging to neither,” she looked almost nervous when she said, whisper soft, “Maybe we can build a new home.”

Sophia didn’t even have to think about it. All her life, living in the despicable mortal shell, hiding, she had only wished for one thing. To go home. The home no longer existed. And yet, here was this girl, offering her something she had thought lost forever. This girl, who knew who she was, who knew what she had done, and yet sought her out anyway.

Nobody had done that before.

“I would like that,” Sophia said, and found that she genuinely meant it.

Freya’s face broke into a smile at that, framed by her dark hair and radiant like the rays reflecting off of water. Sophia wanted to kiss her.

So she did.

Without glamour, without enchantments, she bent forward and met soft, willing lips with her own in a kiss— so much different than the one she had shared with the prince just hours ago.

They both drowned this time.

Lost in each other, on edge of two worlds and belonging to neither, they were finally found.

**Author's Note:**

> I have had this story inside my head for a long time, and I was hoping to have an art done for it too, but life happened. I have an immense love for ladies of this show, specially these two, and I will give them a happy ending if that's the last thing I do.
> 
> Let me know what you thought ♥.


End file.
